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Residents of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho are outpacing the national average decline in gas consumption, according to a new report by the Sightline Instutute.
In the last 8 years, residents of these states have cut back by about a gallon per week, for a total gas consumption reduction of 11%. In the Pacific Northwest, gas usage has fallen to its lowest level since 1966, while CO2 emissions from gasoline have fallen by six-tenths of a ton per capita since 1999.
Pretty cool: two separate groups of researchers at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society have outlined a way to use carbon dioxide emissions as a starting material for making CDs, DVDs, beverage bottles and other polycarbonate plastic items. “Using CO2 to create polycarbonates might not solve the total carbon dioxide problem, but it could be a significant contribution,” says researcher […]
Human exhalations are contributing to the ongoing increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels that are driving climate change, according to a new study released today from the University of Northwest Florida (UNWF).
The four-year-long study by atmospheric scientist Lawrence Meany concluded that human respiration and conversation could be responsible for up to 12 percent of the greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere every year. And, Meany discovered, that percentage appears to be growing.
Got some bad news for all those countries trying to hammer out a successor to the Kyoto Protocol: aiming for carbon dioxide emissions reductions of 25, 50, even 75 percent in the coming decades ain’t gonna cut it.
The only way to stabilize Earth’s climate, according to new research, is to cut carbon emissions to zero … and to do it quick.
Climate […]
By Olga Orda •
February 1, 2008
An http://www.greenprinteronline.com dispatch.
When companies make the shift to reduce the carbon footprint of their supply chain, paper is one of the first – but perhaps most overlooked – ways to shed those office carbon pounds.
But the carbon, environmental and cost savings benefits of switching from virgin paper to more sustainable paper didn’t escape Sustainable Business Design - a consulting firm that provides carbon footprint, greenhouse gas audits and “The Low Carb Corporate Diet” ™ […]
It’s not too late to get involved in what organizers are calling an unprecedented U.S.-wide teach-in focused on solutions to global warming.
Organized by “Focus the Nation,” the teach-in — scheduled to culminate on Thursday, Jan. 31 — aims to get millions of students, teachers, people of faith and other citizens together in various locations to discuss just one topic: how Americans can start tackling climate change […]
Humans have so altered the Earth — from carbon dioxide levels to wholesale changes to plant and animal populations — that we’ve created a whole new geological epoch for ourselves, according to research published this week by the Geological Society of America. The authors of the study conclude that Nobel
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The Swedish University for Agricultural Sciences has just received $590,000 to support research into how diet affects a cow’s methane emissions. Livestock are blamed for 28 percent of the world’s human-caused emissions of methane, a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
Photo courtesy of Man vyi at Wikimedia Commons
Citing the latest numbers from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Time Magazine reports that Texas has the distinction of being the state with the biggest carbon footprint in the Union.
Photo courtesy of Ealdgyth at Wikimedia Commons
I never thought I’d consider nuclear power a desirable solution to climate change until I read James Lovelock’s latest book, “The Revenge of Gaia: Earth’s Climate Crisis & the Fate of Humanity” (see my previous post on the issue here).
Though I’m still not 100-percent convinced, Lovelock’s arguments are factual, rational and highly persuasive. So
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A research team from Sandia National Laboratories is trying to reverse the combustion process and turn carbon dioxide into liquid fuel.
The process works something like this: concentrated solar power from a giant solar furnace is used to superheat a set of catalytic cobalt ferrite rings that, once activated, literally rip carbon dioxide (CO2) molecules apart. As a result, CO2 is transformed into carbon monoxide, which can be converted into methanol, jet fuel, or even gasoline.
Sounds a little too good to be true, but researchers say it works and claim a prototype facility will be completed by April.
The idea of recycling carbon dioxide is not new, but has generally been considered too difficult and expensive to be worth the effort. But with oil prices exceeding $100 per barrel and concerns about global warming mounting, researchers are increasingly motivated to investigate carbon recycling. Los Alamos Renewable Energy, for example, has developed a method of using CO2 to generate electricity and fuel.
